In Rarieda, Kenya, researchers conducted a randomized evaluation to measure the impact of GiveDirectly’s UCT program on poor rural households’ economic and psychological well-being. Results demonstrated that the program had significant welfare-improving impacts, both economically and psychologically, for transfer recipients.

Researchers studied whether financial incentives offered to elementary school students could increase standardized test scores. Students who were eligible to win gift certificates had higher math scores and read more.

Researchers are evaluating the impact of making environmental inspections of high-polluting industrial plants more frequent and removing regulator discretion in selecting plants for inspection on regulatory compliance and pollution emissions in Gujarat, India.

Researchers evaluated whether a conditional cash transfer targeted to youth aged 18 to 23 could encourage participation in a job placement program and ultimately help them secure longer-term, higher-paying positions. The cash transfer increased participation in the job placement program but did not increase participants’ job search efforts or employment rates. In the short run, the transfers had a negative impact on employment.

Researchers studied the impact of private school vouchers on the altruism, or selfless concern for others, of children and their parents. Voucher recipients demonstrated more altruism towards charitable organizations, but not towards their peers.

Researchers evaluated whether the ethnicities of wholesale buyers and sellers in Chennai, India, affected the transaction terms. They found that traders offered lower prices to buyers of the same ethnicity, but not necessarily because they trusted them more.

Trade credit, which is usually provided by up-stream suppliers to down-stream firms, can help small businesses to purchase non-perishable goods for resale and free up resources for other uses. However, provision of trade credit may be limited by high transaction costs, up-stream liquidity constraints, and concerns over repayment. In Kenya, researchers are evaluating the impact of a new method of extending trade credit facilitated by mobile banking and inventory management technologies on small business development.

Researchers evaluated two approaches to improving the quality of Colombian preschools. Providing additional resources to preschools for materials and new staff did not benefit children’s development and, unintentionally, led teachers to reduce their involvement in classroom activities. However, the addition of teacher training focused on teaching methods offset the negative effects on teacher behavior, improved the quality of teaching, and raised children’s cognition, language and school readiness.

Researchers partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action and Bangladeshi policymakers to test various strategies to increase mask-wearing and assess the impact of community mask wearing on SARS-CoV-2 infection rates. They found that a four-part intervention tripled mask usage and increased physical distancing. Further, this increase in mask-wearing reduced symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. When surgical masks were employed, 1 in 3 symptomatic infections were avoided for individuals 60+ years old—the age group that faces the highest risk of death following infection. This was the first large-scale randomized evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness of masks in a real-world setting.

Researchers analyzed outcomes from a previously conducted randomized evaluation to assess the impact of large primary school management reforms in Madagascar on student test scores, and if impacts varied by type of teacher. Results show that the management reforms did not have any impact on student test scores, regardless of teacher type.

Researchers partnered with the tax authority in Belgium to understand what types of messages drive people to comply with their taxes. Results show that simplified messages, as well as messages that highlighted the consequences of non-compliance, induced people to file and pay their taxes sooner. On the other hand, messages aimed at promoting social norms around filing and paying taxes on time, and the social value of public expenditure, had no effects and sometimes even reduced compliance.

In Malawi, researchers tested the impact of a subsidized tree planting program and tested whether allocating contracts randomly or through self-selection resulted in better program outcomes. Self-targeting outperformed random allocation of contracts in terms of tree survival and mitigated increases in land clearing and labor shortages.

Researchers evaluated the impact of making voter registration easier on voter participation by providing information about voter registration and home registration visits. Overall, the results suggest that information and visits can encourage greater participation, particularly among groups that face social and economic barriers to registering and voting.

Researchers evaluated the impact of creating peer groups optimized to improve the academic achievement of lower-ability first-year students at the United States Air Force Academy. Placing lower-ability students in the optimized groups, which mixed them with a relatively large number of peers with high scores on the verbal portion of the SAT, caused the lower-ability students to perform worse, and actually led them to interact more with other lower-ability students.